After months of speculation, makers of a Star Wars game have confirmed that a gay romance option will be included in the latest version of the role-playing hit.

The Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion for Star Wars: The Old Republic will for the first time allow wannabe Jedis to feel the force by pursuing a gay love story.

However, the feature will initially be restricted to characters not controlled by the player.

Jeff Hickman, executive producer of game developer BioWare, apologized for the delay in including the gay romance option.

'I realize that we promised SGR (same gender romance) to you guys and that many of you believed that this would be with a companion character,' Hickman wrote on his State of the Game blog yesterday (2 January).

'Unfortunately, this will take a lot more work than we realized at the time and it (like some other pieces of content we talked about earlier in the year) has been delayed as we focused on the changes required to take the game Free-to-Play.

'As we have said in the past, allowing same gender romance is something we are very supportive of.'

But he added that they will introduce more gay romance options in the future.

News of the gay galaxy far, far away first broke in spring 2012, sparking outrage from homophobic groups who called for players to boycott the game.

Electronic Arts, one of the biggest gaming companies in the world, was inundated with complaints over Star Wars: The Old Republic and the inclusion of gay characters in its game Mass Effect 3.

Other games planning to feature same-sex love include Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.

The hit role-playing series is set to feature marriage between opposite sex characters and there is now talk of whether there will be gay weddings in the future as well.